Scripture Reading: Joel 1:4; 2:28-29; 3:11-21
In Joel we see the history of God, of man, and of God’s economy. It was according to God’s economy that the four kinds of locusts were raised up to consume Israel for so many years in order that He could fulfill His economy by being incarnated into humanity through Israel. Then with the help of the Roman Empire, Christ lived on earth, was crucified, and was resurrected to be enlarged, to produce the church. All of this was through these two factors — the consuming locusts and the suffering Israel — that God could fulfill His economy to have an expression, the organic Body of Christ. We are this Body, this expression. This is the universal history according to God’s economy. In this message I would like to give a further word on this universal history.
We should not think that man has a history but that God does not have a history. In this universe there are two histories: the history of man, the human history, and the history of God, the divine history. We may liken the history of man to the shell of a walnut and the history of God to the kernel within the shell. In the Minor Prophets the “shell” is clearly defined, and the “kernel” is revealed in some detail. Unfortunately, however, most readers of the Bible pay attention only to the shell and not to the kernel.
The shell, the history of man, is easily seen. In Daniel 2 this history is signified by a great human image, with the four sections of this image corresponding respectively to the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Grecian Empire, and the Roman Empire. Although it is easy for us to see the shell, which is something outward and physical, we must have a kind of intrinsic insight in order to see the kernel within the shell, to know the divine history within the human history.
If we would know the divine history that takes place within the human history, we first need to realize that the Triune God is eternal. For God to be eternal means that with Him there is no beginning. Within Himself, this eternal One made an economy. According to His economy, God wants to work Himself into man to be one with man, to be man’s life, life supply, and everything, and to have man as His expression. God’s intention in His economy is thus to have a corporate entity, composed of God and man, to be His expression for eternity. This divine history began with the eternal God and His economy.
The divine history continued with the incarnation and human living of Christ. One day the very God who created the universe became incarnated, being conceived of the Holy Spirit within the womb of a human virgin and then born of this virgin to be the God-man, the One who is the complete God and a perfect man. It is marvelous that God became a man named Jesus and that this man lived in Nazareth, working as a carpenter, until the age of thirty. Christ’s incarnation and His human living both are parts of the divine history, the history of God within the history of man.
At the end of His life and ministry on earth, the Lord Jesus went willingly to the cross. His crucifixion was a vicarious death, an all-inclusive death which terminated the old creation and solved all problems. His death ushered Him into resurrection. On the one hand, in His resurrection He was begotten to be the firstborn Son of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 1:4; 8:29). On the other hand, in and through His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b).
Furthermore, through Christ’s resurrection millions were begotten, regenerated, by God (1 Pet. 1:3) to be sons of God and to be members of the Body of Christ, the church. The Christ who was incarnated, crucified, and resurrected, the Christ who ascended to the heavens and then descended as the Spirit, has produced the church as the corporate expression of the Triune God. The church today is the enlargement of the manifestation of Christ. Thus, the church also is part of the divine history, the intrinsic history of the divine mystery within the outward, human history. This part of God’s history has lasted for more than nineteen hundred years, and it is still going on.
At the end of this part of the divine history, Christ will come back, descending with His overcomers as His army (Joel 3:11) to defeat Antichrist and his army. There will be the meeting of two figures — Antichrist, a figure in the outward, human history, and Christ with His overcomers, the Figure in the intrinsic, divine history. The Figure in the divine history will defeat the figure in the human history and then cast him into the lake of fire (Rev. 19:20). Following this, the thousand-year kingdom will come. Eventually, this kingdom will consummate in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. The New Jerusalem will be the ultimate, the consummate, step of God’s history.
We need to have a clear view of these two histories — the physical human history and the mysterious divine history — and I hope that we all will have such a view. The history of man, the history of the world, is outward. The divine history, the history of God in and with humanity, is inward. This history is a matter of the divine mystery of the Triune God in humanity.
We all were born in the human history, but we have been reborn, regenerated, in the divine history. Now we need to ask ourselves this question: Are we living in the divine history, or are we living merely in the human history? If our living is in the world, we are living in the human history. But if we are living in the church, we are living in the divine history. In the church life God’s history is our history. Now two parties — God and we — have one history, the divine history. This is the church life.
With the divine history there is the new creation — the new man with a new heart, a new spirit, a new life, a new nature, a new history, and a new consummation. We praise the Lord that we are in the divine history, experiencing and enjoying the mysterious, divine things.
